News flash! Animals have personalities

According to a new study by British researchers, animals have “individual differences.”

I’m sure it’s hard for anyone who works with animals — or, for that matter, has ever lived with one — to believe that this is news, but what I found interesting was that the study was done on horses, which are still being slaughtered for food in North America.

Animal behaviorist Adele Lloyd of England’s Bishop Burton College and
her colleagues collected “horse personality questionnaires” (er, filled
out by humans) about 1,223 horses and found that, according to Discovery News, “thoroughbreds, Welsh ponies/cobs and Arabs tend to be anxious and
excitable, while Irish draught horses and Highland ponies are more
mellow. Similarly, Arabs and thoroughbreds are largely social and
inquisitive, while American quarter horses prefer to keep more to
themselves.”

The
researchers also could have just checked the horse listings on
Petfinder to see personality-plus horses like the one pictured here: Page at Equine Escape Rescue in Millbrook, NY — “a very sweet mare. Brave on the trails, a strong and solid girl.”